28 PHYSICAL GEOGKAPHY. [PART I. 



resembling the grassy patenas in the hills, but differing 

 from them in the character of their soil and vegetation. 

 These park-like meadows, or, as the natives call them, 

 " talawas," vary in extent from one to a thousand acres. 

 They are belted by the surrounding woods, and studded 

 with groups of timber and sometimes with single trees 

 of majestic dimensions. Through these pastures the 

 deer troop in herds within gunshot, bounding into the 

 nearest cover when disturbed. 



Lower still and immediately adjoining the sea-coast, 

 the broken forest gives place to brushwood, with here 

 and there an assemblage of dwarf shrubs ; but as far as 

 the eye can reach, there is one vast level of impenetrable 

 jungle, broken only by the long sweep of salt marshes 

 which form lakes in the rainy season, but are dry between 

 the monsoons, and crusted with crystals that glitter like 

 snow in the sunshine. 



On the western side of the island the rivers have 

 formed broad alluvial plains, in which the Dutch at- 

 tempted to grow sugar. The experiment has been often 

 resumed since ; but even here the soil is so defective, 

 that the cost of artificially enriching it has hitherto been a 

 serious obstruction to success commercially, although in 

 one or two instances, plantations on a small scale have 

 succeeded to a certain extent. 



METALS. The plutonic rocks of Ceylon are but 

 slightly metalliferous, and hitherto their veins and de- 

 posits have been but imperfectly examined. The first 

 successful survey attempted by the Government was 

 undertaken during the administration of Viscount Tor- 

 rington, who, in 1847, commissioned Dr. Gygax to 

 proceed to the hill district south of Adam's Peak, and 

 furnish a report on its products. His investigations 

 extended from Eatnapoora, in a south-eastward direc- 

 tion, to the mountains which overhang Bintenne, but 

 the results obtained did not greatly enlarge the know- 

 ledge previously possessed. He established the exist- 



